The present invention relates to an apparatus and a system to carry out the dissipation of the energy of a wave or other like motion at the water and, in particular, to an apparatus and system that can be readily assembled and disassembled on site and which provides protection from the potentially damaging energy of the waves.
The destructive force at water can, of course, be damaging to structures, cause erosion of land and also damage to boats or other craft that are caused to move by the force of the water motion as it hits other boats or structures. The problem, therefore, is not limited to shore areas where the erosive effect is potentially damaging to the shore area but can be present in marinas, boat moorage areas or to any structure that abuts or is located in the near proximity to the water.
There are, of course, numerous types of apparatus that have been proposed and used for the protection of a shoreline against the continual erosion occasioned by the action of waves that strike the shore. Many have relied upon permanent structures that are installed on or near the shoreline and which are made of concrete, steel or of other heavy, stable materials. Examples of such permanent structures are shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,711,598; U.S. Pat. No. 4,367,978 and U.S. Pat. No. 905,596 where the structures are constructed to be permanent as well as entrenched and affixed to the land.
While often effective, such permanent structures suffer from the lack of versatility, that is, they are permanent, and once constructed, cannot be moved to other locations where such protection is needed. In addition, there are many locations where permanent structures are simply not appropriate, such as within marinas, harbors or boat channels, where some means to alleviate the potential harm caused by the uncontrolled movement of the water against boats or docks is needed to counter the force of the wakes left by boats as well as the normal motion of the water.
Other means have also been proposed that are floating structures, including the use of hollow cylinders as shown in the Kann U.S. Pat. No. 5,827,011 as well as the use of a plurality of vehicle tires that form a carpet on the water as shown in Waas, U.S. Pat. No. 4,824,286. Another, more complex system is used to control erosion in U.S. Pat. No. 5,871,303 where an array of panel material are used to precipitate particles out of their suspension in the water and, again, the apparatus is anchored to the river or sea bed. Various barriers of a mesh material or use of ballasting blocks are also proposed and set forth in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,795,099 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,279,536.
One energy dissipation system has also been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,879,105 by the present inventors and which consists of a plurality of buoyant modules that are affixed together such that the specially designed modules, working together, can disrupt the wave action in order to dissipate the energy of the wave motion. In that patent, however, the modules are designed to deflect the water motion around the modules in order to accomplish the effective dissipation of the wave energy and such apparatus has been proved to be very effective in affording protection against the destructive motion of the water.